Comey to Congress: President Trump told him "I need loyalty"

Comey is set to testify before the Senate Intelligence committee Thursday. His prepared statement was released Wednesday afternoon.

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey will testify that President Donald Trump sought his "loyalty" and asked what could be done to "lift the cloud" of investigation shadowing his administration, according to prepared remarks released ahead of his appearance on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Comey, who is scheduled to appear before the Senate intelligence committee, will also tell lawmakers that he informed Trump that he was not personally under investigation. Comey will say that the FBI and Justice Department were reluctant to state that publicly "because it would create a duty to correct, should that change."

Comey's testimony will be his first public comments since Trump abruptly fired him on May 9. At the time of his firing, Comey had been overseeing the federal investigation into possible ties between Trump's campaign and Russia's election meddling, outraging Democrats who claimed the president was interfering in an active probe.

The former director's testimony is based on written memos of his interactions with Trump, some of which he says he shared with senior FBI leadership. Comey describes at length a Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office in which he believed Trump asked him to drop any investigation of fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.

"He then said, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,'" Comey says, according to the prepared remarks. "I replied only that 'he is a good guy.'"

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she was unsure if the president had reviewed Comey's testimony. Asked whether the president stood by earlier assertions that he had neither sought Comey's loyalty nor asked for the Flynn investigation to be dropped, she said: "I can't imagine the president not standing by his own statement."

The seven-page remarks reveal in dramatic detail and with a writer's flair Comey's uneasiness with Trump, who appeared to disregard the FBI's traditional independence from the White House. Some Republicans are expected to press Comey on why he did not raise his concerns publicly or resign.

Among the encounters Comey describes is a Jan. 27 dinner at the White House. He says that after Trump asked him if he wanted to remain as FBI director, the president declared: "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty."

Comey says he replied that he could offer his honesty, and that when Trump said he wanted "honest loyalty," Comey paused and said, "You will get that from me."

In March, after Comey had publicly revealed the existence of a federal counterintelligence investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump complained that the probe had left a "cloud" that was "impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country."

"He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia," Comey's prepared statement says. "He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.'"

The White House initially said Trump fired Comey on the recommendation of the Justice Department, citing as justification a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that criticized Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Trump later said he was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he fired Comey and would have dismissed him without the Justice Department's input.

Comey said his practice of keeping written meeting records began after his encounter with Trump before the inauguration. He said he did not keep records of the two private, in-person interactions he had with President Barack Obama between the time he took the helm at the FBI in September 2013 and the end of the 44th president's tenure.

Comey describes nine one-on-one conversations with Trump in four months.